September 21, 2012 12:13am EDTSeptember 20, 2012 8:02pm EDTThe Oakland A's will have their hands full when they take on the New York Yankees this weekend. With the regular season coming to a close in less than two weeks, there are plenty of series with postseason implications.

The Oakland A’s weren’t supposed to matter by now. This team was supposed to be playing out its schedule and pretty much out of mind by the second-to-last weekend of the regular season.

In a seasons of surprises, the A’s are near the top of the list at 21 games above .500 and with a comfortable lead for one of the American League wild card spots with the Baltimore Orioles.

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Nothing has been clinched for Oakland and they have lost three of their last four, making their upcoming series in The Bronx one of the most important of the weekend.

David vs. Goliath, payroll edition

The New York Yankees started the season with the highest payroll in baseball, and in other non-shocking news, the A’s started with one of the lowest. Yet here both teams are jockeying for playoff position and trying to win a division.

Oakland is no stranger to big series lately. Four of their last five have come against teams battling to make the playoffs, but they did not look overly impressive in their last one series while visiting the Detroit Tigers.

The reason the A’s are in this position is because of their pitching, but it allowed 22 runs in three games against the Tigers and had to win Thursday to avoid a sweep.

If this staff is going to handle one of the best lineups in the majors, they’ll have to be on top of their game because the Yankees have woken up. After struggling to score and win earlier this month, the Bombers are looking like their old selves, winning seven of their previous eight games through Thursday.

The Yankees started Thursday with a half-game lead in the AL East, but those standings have been known to change from day to day in September. If they are going to keep that lead through the weekend, CC Sabathia, Ivan Nova and Hiroki Kuroda will have to pitch well because the A’s throw Jarrod Parker, Travis Blackley and A.J. Griffin—three strong starters—against them.

Do or die

Like the A’s, the Los Angeles Angels weren’t supposed to be where they are right now, either. They were supposed to be making postseason plans, not going into this weekend with their playoff hopes teetering on the edge of a cliff.

That is exactly where their inconsistent play has them, though. The Angels aren’t even sniffing the Texas Rangers at the top of the division and they are starting to lose sight of the A’s and Orioles in the wild card standings.

On Friday they start a crucial series against the Chicago White Sox in Anaheim. If the Angels don’t win the series and if the A’s and Orioles win theirs, the Angels can start packing up those lockers for the offseason because it would take a complete collapse by one of those other teams in order to give the Angels a chance.

As for the White Sox, they’ll do some scoreboard watching over the weekend to see what the Detroit Tigers are doing, but with a two game lead in the AL Central, they just need to win to assure themselves a division championship.

Brew-lieving

That is the new catch phrase for the Milwaukee Brewers, who traded ace Zack Greinke before the July 31 deadline because they figured they were out of playoff contention. It turns out they are very much alive because of a 23-6 record since Aug. 20, the best in baseball over that time, which puts them in the hunt for the second wild card spot in the National League.

They visit the Washington Nationals this weekend—the four-game series goes through Monday—and while the Nats don’t have much to play for other than the best record in the league, which may or may not be valued because of the playoff format this year, they still have strong pitching and are capable of halting Milwaukee’s playoff chances. Edwin Jackson and Gio Gonzalez start the first two games of the series for Washington.

For the Brewers, this is the first of two critical series against division leaders. After facing the Nationals, they go into Cincinnati to play the Reds. If the Brewers can come out of this road trip with three series victories (counting their three-game sweep of the Pirates on the road), they are in serious play for a wild card spot even with the St. Louis Cardinals benefiting from a soft schedule right now.

The rest of the contenders

The Orioles go to Boston to likely beat up on the Red Sox and keep pressure on the Yankees at the top of the AL East.

The Tigers are fortunate enough to get to host the Minnesota Twins this weekend as their final 13 games come against the Twins and the Kansas City Royals.

That second NL wild card spot is held by the St. Louis Cardinals right now, and they get the Chicago Cubs this weekend.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, like the Brewers, get division leaders back-to-back. They visited the Nationals in their previous series and have to go to Cincinnati this weekend.

The Philadelphia Phillies are barely hanging onto hope right now, and they get the Atlanta Braves at home this weekend. If the Phillies lose that series, they are done.